WHO WE ARE

In 1994, Bonnie Armstrong made a promise to her shaken daughter Tiffany as she lay in ICU at Cooks. If she would breathe, Bonnie would make good come of evil. Both kept their promises. The Shaken Baby Alliance was born. Bonnie is the Executive Director. Tiffany is now 22, with a seizure disorder that causes her to have 20-30 seizures per minute. She happily volunteers weekly at the Fort Worth Animal Shelter, and participates in Special Olympics.

Four years later, the agency was founded in 1998 by three mothers whose children were victims of Shaken Baby Syndrome and could find no resources or support. One mother, Bonnie Armstrong, started researching resources on the internet for her daughter, Tiffany, who had been shaken. Little was found. On the TV program, 20/20, a shaken baby case was featured with Attorney Rob Parrish, Chief Child Abuse Counsel for Utah Attorney General's Office. She scoured the internet and found his number. She was immediately connected. She could teach. He had a plan. From that three-hour conversation came the seeds which sprouted the agency. Victim families not only needed resources, but training was essential for prevention and justice needed to be served in the courts. From that perfect storm emerged the core of the three services offered today.

Since 1998, we have provided support to over 250 victim family members per year, trained over 5000 high schoolers in how to deal with a crying baby and SIDS risk reduction, and provided advanced forensic investigation training and child abuse prevention training to over 1,500 professionals each year. Additionally, we provided over 150 case consultations during 2015, with the numbers increasing each year. In 2011 we were asked by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to expand our training programming to develop curriculum related to crimes against the elderly and people with disabilities. This was a natural progression for our forensic training programs since children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities are all the same – vulnerable victims. Read our history here.